NYT Connections #890 for November 17 leans into conversational phrases, prohibition, basketball, and a bit of wordplay. If you just want to lock in your grid and move on, you can jump straight to the full answer table below. If you’d rather reconstruct the logic, skim the category breakdowns first.
NYT Connections #890 overview (November 17, 2025)
Today’s puzzle uses the standard four-color difficulty ladder:
- Yellow – easiest
- Green – straightforward but slightly tighter
- Blue – more specialized knowledge (sports here)
- Purple – wordplay / less literal connections
The 16 words are grouped into these themes:
- Yellow: affirming agreement (“You Bet”)
- Green: “Forbidden”
- Blue: “Basketball Shots”
- Purple: starting with synonyms for “Scram!”
Connections #890 full answer table
| Color | Category name | Theme description | Words in the group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | “You Bet” | Informal ways to say “yes” or show strong agreement | ABSOLUTELY, OF COURSE, OKEY-DOKE, SURE THING |
| Green | Forbidden | Words that mean not allowed or banned | OFF-LIMITS, PROSCRIBED, TABOO, VERBOTEN |
| Blue | Basketball Shots | Named types of shots in basketball | ALLEY-OOP, FADEAWAY, FINGER ROLL, SLAM DUNK |
| Purple | Starting With Synonyms For “Scram!” | Words whose first part sounds like “go,” “leave,” “scatter,” or “shoo” | GO-GETTER, LEAVENING, SCATTERGORIES, SHOO-IN |
Yellow group: “You Bet” (agreement phrases)
The yellow set is all about casual, enthusiastic yeses. These four belong together because each one easily substitutes for “you bet” in everyday speech:
- ABSOLUTELY – emphatic “yes,” often used to show strong support.
- OF COURSE – signals obvious agreement: “Of course I’ll help.”
- OKEY-DOKE – playful, informal variant of “okay.”
- SURE THING – friendly confirmation that something will be done.
Typical trap: it’s easy to see “ABSOLUTELY” and “OF COURSE” and then start pairing them with unrelated emphatic words. If you mentally replace each candidate with “you bet,” this group snaps into focus quickly.
Green group: Forbidden (things that are not allowed)
The green category pulls together four ways to say something is off-limits or banned, ranging from everyday to formal/legal language:
- OFF-LIMITS – directly signals something is not to be used or entered.
- PROSCRIBED – more formal term for outlawed or forbidden, often in legal or official contexts.
- TABOO – socially or culturally forbidden topic or action.
- VERBOTEN – borrowed from German, commonly used in English for “strictly forbidden.”
These words can all modify the same nouns: an off-limits area, a proscribed substance, a taboo subject, a verboten practice. That interchangeability is the key connection.
Blue group: Basketball Shots
The blue group leans on basketball terminology. Every word here is the name of a specific shot, not just a move or rule:
- ALLEY-OOP – one player lobs the ball near the basket, another catches it mid-air and scores before landing.
- FADEAWAY – a jumper taken while moving backward, creating space from the defender.
- FINGER ROLL – a layup where the ball rolls off the shooter’s fingertips in a soft arc toward the hoop.
- SLAM DUNK – a forceful score where the player pushes the ball directly through the hoop from above.
Words like “SLAM DUNK” can be tempting in metaphor-heavy categories (e.g., “sure thing”), but the presence of three other clear basketball terms locks this as a sports cluster.
Purple group: starting with synonyms for “Scram!”
The trickiest set hides its link in the first syllable of each word. Each one begins with a sound that matches a verb meaning “go away”:
- GO-GETTER – starts with “go.” The word means an ambitious, driven person.
- LEAVENING – begins with “leave.” In baking, this is an agent that makes dough rise.
- SCATTERGORIES – opens with “scatter,” as in “scatter!” when you want people to disperse.
- SHOO-IN – starts with “shoo,” the classic way to tell someone or something to scram.
Nothing in the definitions of these words ties them together. The bond is purely in how they sound at the start, which is why this lands in the purple, wordplay-heavy tier.
How to reconstruct Connections #890 without spoilers upfront
If you want to practice solving puzzles like #890 on your own before looking up answers, a simple order of operations helps:
- 1. Clear out the obvious conversational set. Phrases like ABSOLUTELY, OF COURSE, OKEY-DOKE, and SURE THING cluster quickly as “strong yes” expressions.
- 2. Scan for shared registers. OFF-LIMITS, TABOO, PROSCRIBED, and VERBOTEN all signal restriction or prohibition, even though they range from casual to formal.
- 3. Grab the domain-specific group. ALLEY-OOP, FADEAWAY, FINGER ROLL, SLAM DUNK all live firmly in basketball. Once those are removed, you’re left with the wordplay set.
- 4. Listen to what’s left. Saying GO-GETTER, LEAVENING, SCATTERGORIES, SHOO-IN out loud highlights the “go/leave/scatter/shoo” opening sounds, revealing the final theme.
Working through groups in this order—literal meaning first, then specialized terms, then phonetic or structural tricks—keeps streak-ending mistakes to a minimum on days with a purple trap like this one.
Once these four sets are locked, Connections #890 resolves cleanly. If you’re rotating through multiple daily puzzles, the finished grid here gives you a quick reference so you can move on without burning extra guesses.
